Origin 01 · Cajamarca, Peru

Peru Palto

83.5/100 SCA cupping scoreBatch 0526-PRP

From the northern highlands of Cajamarca. 1,600 metres up, where the air cools and the cherries take their time.

In the cupDark chocolate, orange, toffee

Certified-organic farm
Lab report published
One farm, one lot

RM30 / 100g whole bean

About RM5 a cup.

Roasted to order
Posted in 2 working days
Replaced or refunded if faulty

Free postage from RM80 in Peninsular Malaysia

Peninsular Malaysia: RM7, free from RM80
East Malaysia: RM12, free from RM150
Singapore: RM20, free from RM150
Elsewhere: At checkout

Worldwide by DHL or FedEx, 3 to 5 days.

Farm: El Palto
Varietal: Caturra, Pache, Bourbon
Process: Washed
Altitude: 1,600–1,900 m
Roast: Medium
Weight: 100g whole bean
Brew: Filter, V60 or Chemex
Espresso
Cupped: 83.5 out of 100. Specialty grade starts at 80.

The cup

Dark chocolate first. Then a citrus brightness, orange-like, that arrives mid-sip and stays through the finish. Underneath, toffee. Not sweet in the confectionery sense. More like the caramelisation at the edge of a crème brûlée.

A steady, grounding cup. The kind you reach for on mornings when you want something that holds its shape from first pour to last.

The story

El Palto is one of many smallholdings that bring parchment coffee to Falcon's warehouse in Jaén. The warehouse opened in 2018, with grading, cup-scoring, and same-day pricing built into the workflow. A drying facility was added beside it, calibrated to hold moisture at the level the cup needs.

The lot belongs to Falcon's Blueprint Project, which makes every transaction traceable to the household that grew the cherry. Peru was the first origin chosen for the Carbon Project, started in 2022 to study farm-level emissions in detail.

The beans

Caturra, pache, bourbon. Washed. Medium roast.

A standing arrangement

Arriving on a rhythm.

For drinkers who already know which coffee they want. Same coffee, same bag, the same single-origin standard. This is about not running out.

Pause, skip, or end whenever you like. A single email does it.

Before you buy

The questions we would ask.

Is it worth RM30?

A 100g bag pours roughly six cups, which puts a considered morning at a little over the price of a takeaway flat white, made at home in your own time. You are also paying for things that cost us money and are easy to skip: single-origin buying rather than blending, roasting to order rather than to stock, and laboratory screening on the green bean.

Is this one for me?

From the northern highlands of Cajamarca, 1,600 metres up. If you already drink filter coffee black and notice the difference between origins, yes. If you take it with milk, this is the one we would pour you. Chocolate and toffee hold up under milk where brighter coffees fade.

Can I trust what you claim?

By publishing the parts that do not flatter us. This coffee comes from a certified-organic farm, audited annually by an accredited body; the certificate is the farm's, and our roastery is not a certified handler, so the tin carries no seal. This lot went to an independent laboratory accredited to ISO/IEC 17025 before roasting, and its report is published whole rather than summarised into a claim.

How long does a bag last?

Roughly six cups from 100g, so a fortnight for one person drinking a cup most mornings, or about a week for two. It is a deliberately small bag. Coffee is at its best in the first weeks after roasting, and we would rather you finished it while it is still worth drinking than kept it going stale.

How should I brew this one?

We would start with a V60 or Chemex. An AeroPress works too. Roasted medium, so it is forgiving of a slightly coarse grind and rewards water just off the boil. Whole bean, ground at home if you can, because coffee begins losing its aromatics within minutes of grinding.

What if I do not enjoy it?

Write to us. If the bag is faulty, unfresh, or not what we promised, we replace it or refund it. Taste is personal, so if a coffee simply did not suit you, tell us what you thought and we will point you at the one that will. It helps us think about what to carry next.

Everything else we get asked → Our standard, in full →

Also on the shelf

2 × 100gClarity Duo

Kayon, Palto

RM60

Ethiopia, GujiEthiopia Kayon

Mango, coconut, mandarin

RM35

Colombia, HuilaColombia Diviso Gesha

Lemongrass, figs, grapefruit

RM55

What we measured

Nine hundred and fifty-two molecules.

A certificate records what a farm agreed not to use. It cannot tell you what is in the bag you are holding. So we send the green beans to an independent laboratory and ask that question separately.

952pesticide and herbicide residues screened
5mycotoxins: ochratoxin A and aflatoxins B1, B2, G1 and G2
2methods, LC-MS/MS and GC-MS/MS
0.01mg per kg, the level most residues were measured to

This lot, batch 0526-PRP, was screened against 952 pesticide and herbicide residues by two methods, most of them to a hundredth of a milligram per kilogram, alongside ochratoxin A and the four aflatoxins. Every line came back the same. Not detected.

WhereIndependent laboratories accredited to ISO/IEC 17025.
WhenOn the green bean, before we roast.

The full report is below, unedited. We publish it rather than summarise it, because a claim you cannot check is only a claim.

Read this batch report All published results → What we test for, and why →

Why this one

Why it is on the shelf.

We buy this lot from Northern highlands, Cajamarca. Grown at 1,600 m. One farm, one lot, one harvest, bought because the cup earned it and not because it was easy to source.

How it was grown

Grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilisers.

No herbicide is used on this farm, so no glyphosate, and an accredited body audits it every year. The certificate is the farm's; our roastery is not a certified handler, so the tin carries no seal.

From the field to the cup

Most coffee is grown on a schedule of sprays. Fertiliser, herbicide, fungicide, applied to a plant that fruits in some of the wettest country on earth. It works, and it leaves a farm that needs a little more of it every season.

Organic is the decision not to. Compost in place of synthetic nitrogen, shade canopy in place of a cleared field, three years of it before the word organic may be used at all. It costs the farmer more and yields less, which is why so little coffee is grown this way.

You taste the consequence rather than the practice. Under shade the cherries ripen slowly and unevenly, so they are picked in passes rather than stripped in one. Nothing was added to the field to carry a thin harvest. What is in the cup, the tree made.

And there is the part that matters at seven in the morning, before anyone has thought about agriculture. You are not wondering. It is the same instinct as turning the olive oil around to read the back, applied to the one thing you drink every single day.

The difference, line by line

FieldNo synthetic fertiliser, herbicide or fungicide. Audited annually.
PickingShade-ripened, picked in passes, sorted by hand.
RoastLight to medium, never past second crack, so the origin stays legible.
CupClean enough that a flavour you notice came from the coffee.

The longer case for organic →